On May 4, DJ Mandy took the rainy stage with her pink bejeweled headphones at her first-ever festival: Shabang Music, Arts, & Camping Festival. The sixth stop of her Spring Tour 2024, the two-day indie-electronic festival in San Luis Obispo encourages all forms of creative expression and highlights small businesses in the arts, celebrating its tenth anniversary from May 3 to May 4. A rising junior at UC Berkeley, DJ Mandy, real name Amanda Shultz, was invited to perform after going viral because of her deadpan expression while playing intentionally ridiculously wonky mixes and mashes. Shultz, who now has a loyal and ever-growing fanbase of nearly a million people across TikTok and Instagram, talked with Rice & Spice about her experiences as both an up-and-coming DJ and a humorous content creator. In her words, “When you realize being funny itself takes some sort of skill.”
How did DJ Mandy come to be?
[...] [I] started to see more DJ content and I started watching boiler rooms and those kinds of things kept just popping up on social media for me. And that inspired me to want to start on my own. I was just like, why not? It was during summer, I didn't have too much going on. I started making videos the same time I got my first board. And then I started making the funny videos too, at the same time that I just started learning. So I was kind of doing the funny stuff while I was trying to learn for real. And then it blew up, which was very unexpected. And now, here I am.
To piggyback off of the unexpected blow up, what is it like navigating a career that came out of nowhere? What was the experience of going viral like?
It took me by surprise. At the time when I blew up, I was, I still am a college student. But I was in school. And I was working at Trader Joe's. So I didn't really know what was happening. But I was kind of just going with the flow and seeing that, oh, my videos are getting so much exposure, maybe I should keep this up. And I never saw myself going into the DJing and music industry. So it was very surprising. But in the back of my mind, I feel like it was something I had been thinking about for a little bit. So all the pieces fell into place.
What is it like being an Asian American woman not in just DJing in the music industry, but in some form content creation as well? Have you had any particular experiences both good or bad? I would say overall, I feel very included. Everyone is very welcoming in the industry. But it definitely… there isn't much Asian, and especially women representation in DJing. So I think it's really cool to kind of be the face of that. And bringing new content and a new take on DJing as well, along with being female and Asian. Especially in the house music area, which is where I am mainly, I feel like there isn't much women and Asian representation there too.
You're currently on a spring tour right now. What's your favorite thing about performing live as opposed to your TikTok lives or videos, and just how has it been?
I really love it. It's really fun having the live energy there. Obviously posting videos, it's not the same at all. And I could just see comments and people's thoughts and stuff. But being in person and being able to create a space that is just really fun energy and then seeing people's reactions when I do funny transitions or whatever. Just being in the moment is really fun. That's probably my favorite part about it.
Do you have any thoughts of how it's been going so far? You're about halfway through. Any thoughts so far?
I really like it. I want to continue this for sure. I just want to keep getting better. And I still have a lot to learn as a DJ, which I'm very aware of. But I feel like people are very accepting about that. So I'm very grateful for that.
That's a wonderful community to have behind you; people who understand you [...] The Shabang Music Festival is the first festival you're playing. Do you plan to play your set any differently than you would, for example, a frat show?
For every set, I try to make sure everyone is enjoying the music and dancing and having a good time. But I think for a festival, as opposed to a frat show, people are more open to hearing new kinds of music or less popular songs than people usually do at parties. It's fun to share new music and also do funny stuff, like I do sometimes.
What's your favorite thing about DJing overall? There's an art and skill to it. And I think that you have a unique perspective on DJing. What's your favorite thing about it? And just other thoughts of DJing overall?
Overall, DJing is a really good way to share new music with people and it's helped me delve into different genres that I'd never really heard of before. So I really like that aspect of it. In terms of the skills and stuff, it's really cool to play around, because there are so many possibilities of different ways you can remake songs or do different transitions. Playing around with that kind of stuff is always really fun. In terms of my funny stuff, just making things that people don't expect. And just coming up with whatever, I don't know, random combinations and playing with music that doesn't go together. It's just kind of fun. There's really no limits to what you can do.
Do you have any plans for both your social media and DJ career? Anything cool coming up aside from the tour?
Right now, one of my main goals is to start releasing my own music. So I've been working on some stuff. Hopefully, that happens in the very near future. But I want to continue playing live shows. And hopefully be able to travel around, which is definitely one of my main goals. I've been able to do that with this mini tour. So hopefully, that continues.
And then with social media, I definitely want to keep making content, and then using that to help me get booked more. And then when I get booked, that can also help me grow my social media, so the two can work together to just continue growing, and then with original music that will also help. So just growing in all aspects, basically.
